Hydroxypropyl Cellulose Based Non-Volatile Gel Polymer Electrolytes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Applications using 1-methyl-3-propylimidazolium iodide ionic liquid

Abstract

Gel polymer electrolytes using imidazolium based ionic liquids have attracted much attention in dye-sensitized solar cell applications. Hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC), sodium iodide (NaI), 1-methyl-3-propylimidazolium iodide (MPII) as ionic liquid (IL), ethylene carbonate (EC) and propylene carbonate (PC) are used for preparation of non-volatile gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) system (HPC:EC:PC:NaI:MPII) for dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) applications. The highest ionic conductivity of 7.37 × 10−3 S cm−1 is achieved after introducing 100% of MPII with respect to the weight of HPC. Temperature-dependent ionic conductivity of gel polymer electrolytes is studied in this work. XRD patterns of gel polymer electrolytes are studied to confirm complexation between HPC polymer, NaI and MPII. Thermal behavior of the GPEs is studied using simultaneous thermal analyzer (STA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). DSSCs are fabricated using gel polymer electrolytes and J-V centeracteristics of fabricated dye sensitized solar cells were analyzed. The gel polymer electrolyte with 100 wt.% of MPII ionic liquid shows the best performance and energy conversion efficiency of 5.79%, with short-circuit current density, open-circuit voltage and fill factor of 13.73 mA cm−2, 610 mV and 69.1%, respectively.

Synthesis of organic sulfobetaine‐based polymer gel electrolyte for dye‐sensitized solar cell application

“…EC and PC combination is a high dielectric constant material generally used for the preparation of gel electrolytes to improve conductivity and maintain gel‐like state even at low temperature. This combination is generally used in the preparation of gel electrolytes …”

Ionic conductivity improvement in poly (propylene) carbonate-based gel polymer electrolytes using 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide (BmimI) ionic liquid for dye-sensitized solar cell application

“…The main advantages of ionic liquids over organic solvents are low vapor pressure, high ionic conductivity, good chemical and thermal stability, non-flammability, as well as wide electrochemical stability window [6][7][8]. The imidazolium iodide-based ionic liquids are widely used in DSSC as it may play the roles of both conductive medium and nonvolatile plasticizers in electrolytes as well as provide better performance in dye-sensitized solar cells [9,10].…”

Exploration on polypropylene carbonate polymer for gel polymer electrolyte preparation and dye‐sensitized solar cell application

“…Although there is an improvement on the stability of DSSCs using GPEs, it is found that the photovoltaic performance of GPE based DSSCs is lower compared to the liquid electrolytes based DSSCs. This is because of the gel network that holds back the charge carriers in the gel electrolytes to a certain area and the gelatinization which might react with other components of the electrolytes which cause a decrease in the gel electrolytes performance …”